


Silent Night, Unholy Night

by Emery



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Holidays, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emery/pseuds/Emery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sternbild's holiday season brings everything but silent nights, plaguing Barnaby every December, year after year. Over time, he's developed ways to save himself from the deep depression that calls to him every Christmas, but this year it seems there's no escape. Soon, Barnaby finds himself spiraling and falling fast. It's all he can do to keep himself afloat as he struggles through the days before the anniversary of his parents' death, but is all he can do enough?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

For so long, Barnaby had lived only in his own mind. He remained there trapped, day after day, withering and wilting and crushed by his own shaky memories with no one to pull him out or even call to him from the outside. It was his decision to stay that way, so guarded and unfamiliar with the world outside. There was nothing about it that he _wanted_ to feel familiar with.

It meant little to him when Sternbild transformed itself for the holiday season. The huge tree in the square downtown, covered in glittering garlands that seemed to trail up the branches forever until they disappeared amongst the silver lining of the clouds, decorated with great colored orbs that reflected the rays of the sun during the day and the city lights at night—

That grandiose, evergreen tree so symbolic to so many people meant nothing.

All year, the entirety of Sternbild longed for that moment when the Christmas tree was erected and the skating rink opened in the central square, the department stores surrounding decorated with wreaths and bows larger than life, but Barnaby dreaded that day.

It was during this time that he felt the most alone, abandoned and afraid like the four-year-old child who had lost his parents and his home all in one day.

It was during this time that he hid.

As Sternbild’s most recent celebrity hit, it was of course more difficult than it had been before, but Barnaby did the best he could. When he was forced to leave his apartment for work or other obligations, he avoided Sternbild’s central plaza and all the joyous hubbub that surrounded it. Stores and streets he knew to be decorated and rampant with Christmas festivities never once saw Barnaby Brooks Jr. during the holiday season, and they wouldn’t until the new year had come and the festive spirit had disappeared to lay dormant for another year.

Wild Tiger handled the festive volunteer events held to promote Apollon’s famous hero team, and the days of the holiday office parties found Barnaby strangely absent. He wanted nothing to do with the season that he associated with his pain and loneliness, and so he simply pretended it didn’t exist.

But after twenty years of pretending, deceiving himself and curling up within his own fortified castle of misery, there was nothing else he could do. Slowly but surely, Barnaby found himself slipping. It was hard, so hard, to keep up his happy act for the city and for the company, and despite all of Wild Tiger’s and even Maverick’s help, it was the interview for one of Sternbild’s more popular morning television shows that broke him.

The snow fell softly that morning, so light and fluffy that the entirety of Sternbild was like a snowglobe come to life. The stage for the show was set up outside, right in the middle of the place that Barnaby hated most that time of year. The giant Christmas tree loomed behind him in the background, and though he did his best to ignore it, it was impossible to fool himself into its nonexistence. The most he could hope for, as he allowed himself to be placed on-stage and his hair to be touched up to perfection, was that the host of the show didn’t do more than touch on the topic of Christmas.

Before he knew it, the familiar sound of a cheering crowd surrounded him as he sat poised and straight-backed in a chair on the portable stage. The usual, trained smile curled his lips, and he even laughed along a little with the hosts opening jokes. Barnaby’s name was announced even though there wasn’t a single person in Sternbild who didn’t recognize his handsome face and unmistakable curls, and the cheers of the raucous crowd increased even more.

“Thank you, everyone,” he muttered in the light and friendly tone he reserved for public events such as this, offering a small wave to the camera and to the surrounding crowd of the live broadcast.

“And thank _you_ for being here, Barnaby,” the host responded with her typical early-morning enthusiasm. “So tell us all this, because I’m sure everyone in Sternbild is dying to know.”

Barnaby smirked a little even at that statement. What was there about him that Sternbild _wasn’t_ dying to know? He nodded a little, waiting for the question that was to follow.

“Now we all know that Christmas is only about a week away—“

Cheers from the crowd surrounding the stage.

“—and we just can’t _wait_ to get to all those presents under the tree, am I right, everyone?”

He should have expected it, and yet the holiday season was so far removed from Barnaby’s mind that never once had he considered that it might be a topic of the discussion he was to have on live, national television. The smile disappeared from his face little by little and his eyes grew unfocused. A tingling heat rose up into his head and he wiped his brow, disguising the movement of his hand as a stylish sweep of his bangs to one side.

“So what is it that the King of Heroes wants to find under _his_ tree this year?”

Ah, she was addressing him, asking him a question. For the moment, it was his duty as a hero and an employee of Apollon Media Entertainment to answer it, and yet there was not a single appropriate answer that came to mind. Time stood still for a moment as memories came rushing back.

The last time Barnaby had had a Christmas tree, he had found the corpse of his father beneath it when he came home from the skating rink. That had been his Christmas present, two dead parents and a house already engulfed in flames so high that it had been impossible to salvage.

What did Barnaby want to find under his tree?

How about anything but a corpse with a bullet hole between its eyes and dark red blood pooling beneath its pale, stiff limbs?

“Surely there must be _something_ that you want, Barnaby. Don’t be shy now! You know you have so many lovely, generous fans that you might just get exactly what you ask for!”

Some young woman in the crowd screamed something ridiculous along the lines of “You can have me for Christmas, Barnaby!” and the stage as well as the rest of the audience burst into so much laughter that no one heard Barnaby’s answer to the question.

Through her own laughter as sweet as bells, the host of the television show looked apologetically at the camera and then at her guest, asking him kindly to repeat himself.

There was a small bit of silence then as everyone eagerly awaited for Barnaby’s answer, some perhaps hoping to woo him with the gift of his choice and others just genuinely curious, but no one received the answer they were expecting.

“My parents,” Barnaby muttered. His emerald eyes scanned the floor of the stage as his shiny leather loafers shuffled nervously beneath him. “I just want my parents back. That’s all I could ever bring myself to ask for.”

The silence didn’t register with him, nor did the concerned reply of the host. He had no idea how hard he was shaking and that he was wringing his hands so nervously in his lap that this fingers were turning odd shades of red and white from the pressure of his own grip. It seemed that, as the talk-show host sitting across from him expertly shifted to a commercial break, the world around him had stopped completely. All this time he had tried so hard to keep himself from remembering Christmas, had tried to cut himself off from the outside world for exactly this reason, only to be unearthed from the comfortable hiding place within himself by some inane morning show interview question.

Gleaming salt tears slid down his reddened face before the live cameras could stop rolling, and in that moment Sternbild knew for a fact that Barnaby Brooks Jr. had broken.

Kotetsu was among those watching from home, in awe of what they saw on the screen before them. A commercial began rolling soon afterwards, but not soon enough to hide Barnaby’s shaking shoulders slump into a heap as he took his reddened, tear-streaked face into his hands. While the entire city may have been watching, only a few people knew the _reason_ for what they saw, and one of them was Barnaby’s partner.

“Oh, Bunny.” The words slipped from his mouth, whispered and forlorn. The veteran hero was in no way presentable, his green dress shirt hanging open over patterned boxers. A piece of toast hung from his mouth half-eaten as he stood helplessly watching Barnaby fall apart for everyone to see. What the blond needed right now he could not have, and that was some measure of support. Without a second thought, Kotetsu dragged on a pair of his usual dress slacks and, for the first time in as long as he could remember, left the house without having ironed them.

The world would have to handle his wrinkled clothes for one day.

Barnaby was Kotetsu’s world. An image of Tomoe flashed through his head, brief, shocking and unexpected.

“I’m coming, Bunny. You’ll be ok. I’m coming.”

He’d be damned if he let his world fall apart again.


	2. Chapter 2

“What _was_ that back there, Barnaby? Since when have you been the one to lose your cool?”

Barnaby remained in much the same position he had huddled himself into on live television, humped over in his chair with his face in his hands, hair ruffled and expression hidden from the rest of the world. Hidden. That was how he wanted to remain, just as he had been for so many years before. Whether or not he had even heard Lloyds speak was unclear, though if he had he couldn’t be made to respond.

“Please, Mr. Lloyds. This isn’t helping him,” Kotetsu pleaded from the chair beside Barnaby. There was strain even in his own voice as he forced himself to keep his distance. More than anything he wanted to feel Barnaby’s body within the grasp of his own arms, wanted to pull the young man close into the embrace he needed so badly. A kiss on the forehead, butterfly kisses to the cheeks, anything to keep Barnaby from slipping into the dark recesses of his heart that had opened up to swallow him alive.

The heroes’ agent shot Kotetsu a sharp glare, daring him to be defiant a second time. “And what do you suggest we do, Kotetsu, since you’re suddenly the expert on Barnaby’s mental health, or lack thereof?”

“That’s _enough_ , Lloyds!”

Kotetsu leapt up to his feet and slammed his palms down onto Lloyds’s desk hard enough to rattle the objects scattered around it and even make Barnaby flinch with the shock of such sudden noise and movement.

Lloyds blinked, frozen in place. He was very aware of the threat Kotetsu posed when angry, not stupid enough to provoke the NEXT any further except for a final, hissed warning. “If you speak to me like that again, Kotetsu, I can have you fired in a heartbeat from this company and you will _never_ be re-hired as a hero again at your age. You should consider more often what a privilege it is that you are allowed to continue your work here with our company—“

“You fire him and you might as well fire me, too.” The threat was weak but serious, uttered in a voice that cracked with emotion.

Kotetsu had never heard Barnaby like that before, and it broke his heart.

All three of them knew that such arguments were pointless and off-topic, nothing but a waste of time that would only further provoke Barnaby’s sudden instability, and yet Kotetsu was the only one willing to vocalize the thoughts they all possessed.

“This isn’t helping anything. It’s not answering your questions,” he said firmly, a finger pointing in his agent’s direction. “Nor is it helping Barnaby recover. This entire meeting is a load of bull. You know as well as I that Barnaby needs to be at home resting after such an ordeal. What are you going to do, subject him to more interviews that are only going to upset him? And what’s _that_ going to do to his image, or yours?”

Barnaby only revealed his face long enough to look up for a moment, just long enough to catch the expression on Kotetsu’s face. It was fiercely intense and almost scary, and yet a warmth resided in his golden orbs that Barnaby knew was fueled by passion alone and reserved for only him. He doubted if Lloyds noticed the expression. No, it was a sentiment meant only for Barnaby so that the young man could know that Kotetsu was his defender and his protector. Seeing such a powerful emotion burning hot in those eyes he had come to love so much, a small part of Barnaby felt as if it were being enveloped in the warmth of a blanket or a strong, muscled embrace.

To have someone stand up for him was a comfortable feeling that he had never known, not since he was too young to remember. Throughout a child’s life, he relied on his father and mother to be his guardians in the cold, harsh world that stood like a bleak expanse before him. Barnaby had possessed no such thing, which was why he had originally wanted to push such sentiment away the first times that Kotetsu had attempted to care for him.

He had once reprimanded the old man, saying things like, “It’s my own business,” or “I don’t need your sympathy,” but deep in Barnaby’s heart he had always appreciated the old man’s sentiment. Even now, as much as the blond felt solace as a result of Kotetsu’s brave intervention, he wasn’t sure how to respond, and it was more than a relief when Lloyds released both of them from his office at last.

He had allowed them each one day away from work, with the exception that their call bracelets rang in the case of an emergency. Barnaby would be allowed one extra day at home, despite having to cancel a long list of events the next day.

And that was it.

While Lloyds may have had his hands tied to an extent, Kotetsu was less than happy with the way their agent had handled the situation. Of course holiday stress was bound to get to everyone, but it gave him no excuse to mistreat Barnaby. Then again, Kotetsu had been the one to lose his cool back in the office—

“Bunny?”

Even worse was the way Barnaby held his head down like a reprimanded child all the way home. The way he had been treated and criticized for a moment of weakness out of his control probably made him _feel_ like a child, and an insignificant one at that. Kotetsu’s stomach churned with uneasiness and worry. He wanted so much to help, but at a time like this, what was there to do? Barnaby didn’t answer, but Kotetsu followed his lead to the familiar red sports car in Apollon Media’s parking garage and hopped in the passenger seat. Of course the young hero wasn’t going to reject Kotetsu’s company—it was only natural that he came home with Barnaby at such a time.

Fifteen minutes into the drive, Kotetsu heard a whispered murmur from the driver’s side of the car. “Thank you.”

When he met Barnaby’s watery eyes, even just for a second, it brought tears to his own. The blond was still dressed to the nines in that dazzling red, double-breasted suit the media seemed to love so much. In their eyes, it was festive and bright and brought out the Christmas-tree green of his eyes, but to Barnaby, what was it? Just another fancy outfit he had bought to make himself stand out on national television? He never said so aloud, but Kotetsu knew that he couldn’t really like all that attention and publicity—it would get old for anyone. But now, during this festive season that left Barnaby feeling so helpless and alone, it truly served no point. He advertised products that were sure to be bought as gifts now that his name had been associated with them, he was interviewed about his favorite brands and electronics, so everyone could be like Barnaby, and it was _tiring_.

It was tiring for Kotetsu as a bystander, and he couldn’t even imagine how Barnaby felt about it.

“No need to thank me, Bunny. Let’s just get some hot chocolate made and some blankets around you, okay? I’ll handle any calls.”

Sure Kotetsu would handle them, but that didn’t mean he was eager for them. Barnaby was his priority now, and as far as he was concerned, taking care of his younger partner was now his most important duty. It would be a miracle if they could make it through Christmas without another mishap, but Kotetsu was bound and determined to try.

Barnaby smiled in return, though it was no secret that the gesture was weak and forced. He was tired and his entire body felt numb, and he would be so glad to be back home away from Sternbild’s constant reminder that the anniversary of his parents’ death was right around the corner.


End file.
